


Doomed Jades are the Enemy

by SpaceProphet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Doomed Timeline(s) (Homestuck), F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, SBURB (Homestuck), Snippets, Two Shot, stan jade harley or perish, the character death is offscreen, the davejadekat is going to be pale and mentioned in passing as well so!, theyre supposed to be pale but wtf do what you want guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceProphet/pseuds/SpaceProphet
Summary: Dave's talked to so many doomed Jades at this point and he still can't get an answer that makes him feel better about all the rumpus he's gotten himself into. Two Shot/ Angst with a happy ending!
Relationships: It's all pale baby, Jade Harley/Dave Strider, Jade Harley/Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, karkat isn't even going to be in this he's just mentioned
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Doomed Jades are the Enemy

Small, Red, and Wriggling it sat in his hand. An imperfect frog, its heartbeat pattering against his palm. Jade had cupped it into his hands, her calloused fingers scratching at his own. This was his fifth trip around now and he’d gotten used to it, but they still weren't even halfway done. He watched as she readied the small cage he’d take over to the next timeline, the snow chilling her exposed knees where she sat kneeling in the snow, turning them bright red. She was the same as the last five Jades he’d met and subsequently doomed and yet...something had to have been different in her past to have her landing here. She was a Jade that had eaten too much dinner or a Jade who hadn’t been able to sleep last night. A Jade who, apparently, had pinned up her hair to get it out of her face. She stood up, the front of her dress soaked as she trotted over to him excitedly, another Frog already in the Cage. It was smaller, a bright emerald green with specks of white across it’s back. 

“Alright, you’re ready to go!” She grinned, attempting to pass it into his hands. Dave hesitated, thumb nervously tracing over the frog in his hands back. Him leaving meant this timeline officially being doomed. This Jade officially being doomed. Her smile faltered. “Dave? Are you okay?” 

He slipped an easy grin back into place. “Course, Harley. Popped out of the interdimensional slime ready. I showed my cute as fuck baby face for the first time and John went “damn, now that's a cool guy who’s probably ready for this exact moment.” You can’t make this shit up-” 

“Dave.” Jade pulled the cage back as he leaned out to grab it. He stopped, mouth clicking shut. “Stop. What’s wrong with you?” 

“Well that's the question, isn’t it? And there isn’t one answer to it, either. Maybe it’s time sickness. That’s gotta be real in some shitty B-tier Sci-Fi movie John’s made us watch for him, right?” 

“Nooo, you don’t get off the hook so easily.” She pulled the Frog back, pouting at him. “We have the time to talk, this timelines already doomed. You just gotta get out of here before you are too.”

He winced for real this time, looking back to the frog in his palm, where it sat puffing its chest in easy time. He could feel Jade staring at him. “...that's the problem isn’t it?” 

He sighed, looking back up to her. “Yeah. I mean, sorta? As cool as this shit is in concept living in it’s an entirely different thing, you know?” 

Jade’s rudy face pulled into something sympathetic and Dave felt sick. 

“Dave...I really wish I knew. Really. This is...this has just been my whole life.” Her voice was soft as she reached forward, grabbing his hand and guiding him to help place the frog into the cage. He latched it, taking the cage in one hand. Jades hand latched onto the other one, her cold fingers chilling him and grounding him to the moment. “It’s been like that for you to you just don’t know it yet.” 

“Shit. You’re right.” He let out a huff, his breath clouding up Jade’s oversized glasses. She laughed, using her palm to brush away the steam. 

“Being doomed really isn’t so bad when it comes down to it. I knew it was going to happen from the start of the game, when John prototyped the Joker figure in his dad’s room. It wasn’t supposed to happen, you know?” 

He sagged. “Yeah...it wasn’t. How can you be so calm about it?”

“I’m...not. I’m scared. Really scared.’ She let out a nervous trill of laughter. “I’ve never died before. I read a book once where this kid said it was going to be an adventure but I somehow don’t believe that?” 

“Oh shit, Dumbledore?”

“What? Who- dumle door? I was talking about Peter Pan.” She laughed again, her eyebrows pulling down. He watched the snowflakes collect in her hair, white on black and nearly twinking for how fast they disappeared, like the dress she wore now. 

“Shit, that’s good too I guess.” He felt Jade’s hand tighten on his. 

“Is it for you yet? My Dave, before he left with my first frogs, he told me he was okay with dying...that that was his Job as a doomed Dave. I didn’t like hearing that...but I understood it I think. I have some good news for the doomed, Dave.” 

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. “Good news for the doomed?”

“Yeah! That it’s never the end! But...I can’t tell you any more. We don’t have time- well, you don’t. You gotta get out of here. Ask the Next Jade you meet and I know she’ll tell you!”

Jade beamed at him but Dave knew a mask when he saw one. “Harley…”

“Dave...we don’t have time anymore. You’ve gotta get out of here while you still can, okay? Keep the Frogs safe for me?”

Dave felt his heart shatter as she stepped away. “Yeah. Yeah I can do that. These Frogs are gonna live to be ancient. Promise.” 

She laughed, crossing her heart with her finger - and that's how Dave left her, alone in a Doomed world. 

* * *

The next Jade Dave met hadn’t alchemized the damn dress. She sat in a blue one instead, the frills of the tutu like bottom puffing up around her like clouds, fiddling with the latch on the cage. A bright purple frog sat in her hair and he chose to stare it down instead of her when he popped the question. “Jade.”

Her head popped up, revealing a broken pair of glasses. Her left eye was blooming purple and swelling but she grinned. “I know, I know, I’m going as fast as I can, Dave. You want to give it a shot?” She offered the cage to him, jiggling it in the same way the last had. His chest ached as he sat down to help. He took the cage from her, looking the lock up and down. His heart beat loudly in his ears. “Last time loop you said some pretty cryptic shit. You were like if Yoda didn’t feel the need to trick people into thinking he had an accent and was also my best friend.”

Jade cackled like a witch, a hand closing over her mouth. She shoved his shoulder playfully. “Don’t make ME Yoda, Dork! We all know it would be Rose!” 

She wiggled her eyebrows and Dave couldn’t help the laugh that left his throat. “Yeah, okay, you're right. Rose is Yoda. She does have that crotchety old ancient Deity energy. You can’t tell me that he’s not in one of those books she reads; Yoda, keeper of all earthly knowledge.”

Jade laughed again and Dave pretended that he couldn’t unlatch the cage. Just a bit longer. “What did I say then?” Damn it. 

“Just that… eh, I don’t know, it’ll all come to pass or whatever. All your predictions have come true before. Might as well just keep on course and let what happens happen.”

Jade scoffed. “Oh come on, Dave! I know you don’t think that. That's not how you work- it’s never been! You’re always trying to help, even when you want to pretend that you’re aloof! You’re a do-er, whether you know it or not!”    
He looked away, popping the latch with an easy flick of the wrist.

“Oh! See? You did it!” He heard Jade rustle around, pulling the frog from its spot in her bangs and putting him in his new enclosure. He glanced back at her, grinning at the frogs she’d selected. “Other than that, we just...have to keep on going! Even if we know it’s hopeless, you know?” 

Damn it all. His hands tightened on the cage, knuckles white. He heard her still, and felt the gossamer ruffles of her dress brush up against his hand as she scooted closer. “What did I really say?” 

“...shit. I can’t lie to you Harley, you’ll hunt me down if you figure it out.”    
She let out a huff. “And now you’re stalling. You know the clocks ticking for when you have to leave so you’re trying not to spill the beans!”

“See, you see right through me.”

“Dave!”

“Alright, Alright… you said that a doomed timeline’s never the end. What did you mean by that? I’m the time player but I don’t know what happens after a timeline ends, you know?”

“Oh! That’s easy! I learned all about this from one of the aliens. She showed up in my dream, isn’t that weird?”   
“Harley, you could tell me I marry Obama in the future and if it was in your dream I’d be picking out dresses already.”

She laughed again. “Ok, then you know I’m telling the truth! She made these...giant bubbles! They’re constantly expanding and pulsing and growing and they’re just...consciousness and memory. Apparently every Jade and every Dave-” she placed her hand on top of his, “thats ever lived or died goes there when their turn in the light is over. From there...I’m not sure. Maybe the next me does? Make sure to ask for me, alright?”

Dave’s throat tightened. “Yeah...yeah, I could do that.”

She gave it a light squeeze. “Thank you...oh! And Keep the Frogs safe for me?”

Dave swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah I can do that. These Frogs are gonna live to be ancient. Promise.” 

She laughed, a near identical sound to the last. He gave her a smile and a wave but inside he felt himself wither. 

* * * 

The next Jade’s he met gave him similar answers; the one in the squiddle pattern winter coat had told him to talk to a heart player from the aliens, but he had no clue who that was, and the one after her, who had been dressed like a hippie, complete with flowers woven through her hair, told him that she would see him again and winked, content to leave him in the dark. This Jade was a little better with her words. She had been wrapped up in a blanket, John Egbert himself asleep and leaning onto her side. Dave had taken a load off with her. She gave him a long suffering look.

“It’s called the Ultimate self. I learned about it from Nepeta.”

“Who?” Dave watched as she drew the blanket closer around herself. He threw another log into the fire and she smiled as it crackled back to life.    
“She’s one of the trolls. Really nice...She’s been furry role playing with me since I entered. It’s been really fun…” She let out a rough cough, bouncing John's head into the snow. He woke up with a start, shooting to his feet and sending a plume of air and snow up around himself as he looked nervously from side to side. 

“Yo, Egbert, we’re good! Sit down, relax…” This version of John was jumpy and scared. A bandage was wrapped from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder, disappearing under his god tier outfit. It made Dave ache to see.

John slumped, dropping back down between them with a sigh. “I’m sorry. Things have just been really fucked up, Dave, and I-” 

“S’all good man, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

John pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his head on his knees. “Good…” 

Jade reached out her bruised arm, rubbing John's good shoulder as they sat in silence. Eventually he leaned back into her, sighing. “It’s good to know that Dave is not...like, gone forever.”

Dave looked down at his feet. Is this what would have happened if he had died that early in his land? Is this what would happen if he didn’t ever go back to his real timeline? 

“It’s okay, John…” Jade rubbed his shoulder soothingly. “Dave...you should know this. For your own good; The Ultimate self is what you get to be when you’ve won and claimed your prize.”

Dave watched her, even though she didn’t catch his eye. Her bright green eyes were honed in on only her hand as it moved up and down John's shoulder, and her glasses were lost somewhere in the snow. “What do you mean?” 

“Every version of yourself combines into one-”

“Wait, Jade-” John shifted slightly to look at her, eyebrows knit together, “if we become our ultimate self and make every decision there is to make how are we any different than anyone else?”

She gave a weak laugh. “Because there's some things we’d never ever do, even when given the choice. Even when we wanted to… like Dave wants to leave and go home right now, but he won’t.”

Dave nearly jumped at being addressed. He nodded. “Harley’s right. I won’t leave you guys till I have too.”

John stared at him, long and hard, like he was absorbing him. “...you had a scar on your lip. You don’t anymore…” 

Dave deflated, staring up into the snow as it fell, letting it chill his skin. “So...it’ll just be a Dave Strider Lassangia?”

Jade laughed, though it turned to coughs. John’s face broke; it was his turn to rub her shoulder. Dave started, standing. “Shit, Harley- I’m sorry-” 

“Don’t be...ouch!” The ouch was laughed out and angry at the same time. She copied Dave’s earlier motion, looking up into the sky. 

“But no...you’ll have knowledge of all your past lives… you’ll have learned their lessons, felt their loss… but for the most part the differences are gonna be like this...I want to go home, John.” Jade’s voice broke, her lip wobbling. “I wanna go lay down in bed and go to sleep…”

John and Dave shared a helpless look before John knelt beside her, scooping her up as gently as he could. She winced in pain, blinking tears from her eyes as she gripped his shoulder. “Dave...Dave, just...don’t worry, okay? I promise we’ll meet again when we’re okay…!” 

Dave strode forward. He felt sick. He could die a million times, probably had, but...he had never thought about what his own sacrifice would mean for others. He’d sacrificed them too in the long run. He pulled the other two into a light hug. “Keep safe…both of you. For as long as you can…” 

Jade gave him a weak smile. “We have to keep on going...even if we know it’s hopeless.”

Dave knew. Fuck, Dave knew. 

* * * 

Small, red, and still- that's how he found her, half buried in the snow. And there in front of her, hunched and shaking was himself. 

The other dave ignored the sound of him approaching in the snow. He sat down. Hard. The other version of himself didn't bother saying anything. Dave didn't mind. Instead he just took in this Jade, with her dark hair haloing out around herself and her tired expression. He knew he had closed her eyes.

This was the first time he'd ever seen her dead and it left him...numb. Achy. His heart felt like it was covered in pins and needles, like TV Static in his bones.

"I...I just…" Dave heard his alternate selves voice tremble. "I dodged."

"What?" He looked at him. They were identical, down to the scar over his eyebrow. The pins picked up again.

"Noir. From Derse. She shot him. He redirected the bullets at me. They went...through him and they showed up behind me. And I dodged."

Dave looked up, blinking back tears. "I won't."

And he didn't.


End file.
